


Can't Help Looking Back

by Omoidaseru



Category: Kuroko no Basket
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Pacific Rim AU, more characters mentioned in brief little snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 22:35:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omoidaseru/pseuds/Omoidaseru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pacific Rim AU:  The thing about Drifting is that you can float away within seconds. All it takes is the right breeze to blow you away, and you’re gone – without the right anchor, you’re gone forever, most likely taking those in the immediate vicinity with you. Riko has heard all of this and more, she knows the facts, the stats, the various ways different fights and different incursive memories invite different attitudes in her boys, that they’re never more energised than a night spent together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Help Looking Back

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't help myself and I am so sorry on behalf of everything I have done/will ever do

  The thing about Drifting is that you can float away within seconds. All it takes is the right breeze to blow you away, and you’re gone – without the right anchor, you’re gone forever, most likely taking those in the immediate vicinity with you. Riko has heard all of this and more, she knows the facts, the stats, the various ways different fights and different incursive memories invite different attitudes in her boys, that they’re never more energised than a night spent together. She knows the risks, more than most, of the arrangement they have. The three of them tuck in tight against each other in beds made for one too often for her to bother keeping track of, the only solstice they find on days where Jaegers are lost to the scrap heap and, one by one, pilots are lost.

  It’s like a reverse Noah’s arc, if the arc was a thousand ton machine powered by technology that shouldn’t have needed to exist and human will didn’t have to solidify for the betterment of mankind. Riko knows enough that trust is essential when stepping to the forefront, that you have to believe that your memories are strength and the flood of Kaiju are merely a test from a higher being – disproved theory or not – but the difference between herself and her boys is that they will always have a connection that she will never experience. For all of their differences, Hyuuga and Teppei share a mind, and while she’s part of the collective known as Iron Heart, she will not be the one contributing to a soul tearing experience should things go wrong. She’ll be the one to mop up the pieces and burn flags in place of bodies at the crematorium. Worst of all, she won’t have a purpose any more; without her boys, she is another victim of the plague, and if there’s anything she hates more than standing by while they grapple with monsters a hundred stories high, it’s the thought of being useless.

   Not that it’s jealousy, and not that it’s making a mountain out of a molehill, but she had never considered the possibility of being – or becoming – drift compatible with either of them. Riko had just assumed the natural position of home for them all, of analysing the fuck out of whatever data her fellow scientists thought would dig up and splash across the world in an attempt to fight back that little more effectively. She makes a difference in her own way, even when she downplays her own hand in her boys – and she rarely does, but it’s easy to get insecure when you stand over holographs and a microphone and why are there so many grunts _they shouldn’t ever have to be in pain_. 

  Momoi has confessed the same feelings on many occasion; the struggle of sending them out without knowing if they’re coming back but having to act as though it’ll be a piece of cake, even when you know it won’t be. Even when it isn’t, when Tetsuya comes back with multiple fractures and Aomine drinks himself to sleep most nights because he can’t pilot on his own and his compatibility is severely impaired by his ego amongst other things. Riko looks at Momoi sometimes and counts herself lucky; her boys are stupid in situations that require logic, but they have heart to make up for suicidal tendencies, and the ability to recognise that relationships with your co-pilot are a bad idea if you don’t understand what sharing your mind will mean.

  One day, she hears of a scientist that has suggested mind melding within the ranks, not just of the pilots, and her heart skips a beat. So many untested variables, so many experts calling bullshit on it all – not cost productive, too risky, too many reasons why it shouldn’t work and why the teams only rarely allow three into the cockpit, but she likes to think of herself as a little more mature than most, and with maturity brings the knowledge that she is great at her job, there’s no-one more likely to complete such an undertaking and come out somewhat unscathed. She knows it’s happened before, that the uninitiated have undertaken drift and come out alive – she just has to hope that she’s one of the lucky ones.

  When she broaches the idea with Teppei, because Teppei is gentle and prone to understanding where Hyuuga is all brash overreaction, he’s quiet for a time immeasurable. She’s perched on the edge of his bed, hands wringing in her lap over and over, and he still doesn’t talk – not when he wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her into a laying position, not when he closes his eyes and nuzzles into her hair, warm breath ghosting along the shell of her ear and his free hand rests on the small of her back. It takes a long time for him to find his words, and she really shouldn’t be so surprised when he whispers them out to soften the blow.

  “You don’t know what you’re asking for, Riko.”

  But she does, and they both know it, so they content themselves with laying in silence until the moment Teppei’s breathing evens out, and Riko’s eyes are heavy enough that closing them for a second, just a second mind you, won’t hurt. When she opens them, Hyuuga has taken Teppei’s place and there’s something in his facial expression as he looks down at her that pinpoints the exact moment he decides to agree to something stupid. Teppei is the patron saint of rash decisions, but Hyuuga manages to wrestle the title from him when he nods his head and presses a kiss to her forehead, breath coming out in a sigh that sounds a little too much like foreboding.

  Teppei is opposed to it for many reasons he doesn’t so much voice as imply with facial tics and the faltering of his hands as they reach for her at the end of a long training session, but they’re all adult enough to know that it’s going to take time to arrange, never mind come to terms with. Anything can happen, after all, and on some subconscious level he knows – hell, it’s probably at the forefront of his mind most days – that not understanding the bond of melding minds when you’re the third point of the triangle is most likely the most frustrating thing you could wish upon anyone. He tries to rationalise it by thinking of the intimacy it will bring, of how it will bring ease to Riko’s mind to know – as Hyuuga and he already do – that it’s a relationship built on trust and intimacy and a thousand indescribable things that just _are_. If he thinks of this as an opportunity to show Riko these things, it makes it easier to swallow.

  There’s always going to be that diplomatic voice in the back of his head, though, that speaks oh so calm and steady and informs him of the dangers of Drifting with an uneven heart. He’s Iron Heart’s Kiyoshi Teppei, so named because of his unwavering nerves on the battlefield and Hyuuga’s cool analysis, but the thought of thinking the wrong thing for a fraction of a second and sending Riko down the rabbit hole has him shaking, full body wracked with nerves that won’t quit. It’s these nerves that come into play as they take down a category three in the waters of the bay surrounding Hong Kong, and it’s these nerves that jolt Iron Heart just the wrong way, it’s those nerves that wrench his knee into the wrong position and oh, he didn’t know he could feel pain like that.

  The lights are blinding and there’s the faint twang of white noise, Hyuuga’s voice telling him to keep it together in an increasingly frantic tone of voice and he forgets, for a moment of eternity, how to breathe. He’s taken damage before, worse than he suspects this injury will afford, but he usually takes it in his stride. He’s allowed himself to be _weak_ today, and the thought crosses his mind that Hyuuga will be the one to meld with Riko. He hears a hysterical laugh and feels the sharp pinch of a slap across his face and he’s back from the void, turning to flash Hyuuga a grimace [intended as a smile] as they land the final punch together, as he limps back to base and tries to not think about the strain Hyuuga is under as he compensates for his own lack of strength at that moment in time.

  Then again, he thinks to himself as he’s strapped down to a stretcher and oxygen is applied, Hyuuga always was the strong one, and oh, the oblivion is welcomed for once. He wakes up to Riko holding his hand, staring at the wall with that complicated expression that he’s come to associate with guilt – if he could find the energy to sit himself up, he’d wrap himself around her and make her forget everything humanly possible. He has to settle for a squeeze of her hand, another grimace intended to lighten spirits and she’s wiping her eyes, stubborn as ever. Yeah. Hyuuga has to be the one to meld with her. He can’t do it, not while the thought of hurting her any more than he already has with his actions that day rattles around his mind. Contrary to popular belief, he does have a brain – instinct is only worth so much when you’re strapped into a veritable torture machine to fight to the death.

  The subject isn’t brought up again for so long that the ache in Kiyoshi’s knee has dimmed down to a dull pain he can bare to not think about, as long as he doesn’t over exhort himself. He never does things by halves, though, meaning it’s a rare occasion when this doesn’t actually occur. Still, the season has changed entirely, the Kaiju attacks are more often and there’s talks of a wall to end all walls, their eventual retirement and Kiyoshi dares to hope for moments of peace, where they can settle down and be who they want to be, rather than who they need to be. He pretends to not notice how firm Riko’s body has become, or how toned her limbs look when wrapped around Hyuuga, when he has the privilege of watching them move together – like partners, he realises, and it feels like he’s being replaced.

  Hyuuga doesn’t question why Teppei pulls away so often nowadays. He doesn’t need to – he can read the idiot like a book, whether he realises or not. It’s less a consequence of their work and more a handy feature of knowing Kiyoshi through thick and thin, for better or worse and, as of late, in sickness more than health. It doesn’t take much to open festering wounds – it takes a lot more to make a man like Kiyoshi admit that they exist. So Hyuuga waits, and he continues to wait for the time to be right, for Kiyoshi to speak on his own terms. He continues to wait through another attack, where they very nearly don’t exist at all, until he decides that it can’t go on like this.

  It says a lot about the quality of the Seirin base that they pretend to not pick up on the bad vibes from the Iron Heart crew and technicians, although it’s more about understanding that things need to be handled at certain paces. The unfortunate side of this is that Kiyoshi does not seem to have a pace of his own – he’s content to be dragged from to along to fro, drifting as the technology insists he must, caring very little those days about anything but escaping the growing insecurities of a man divided. Kiyoshi, it is unanimously decided, needs a break, but taking a break would break him apart – Hyuuga whispers words of encouragement in the dark of the night as Riko cradles him, gentle enough that he could fucking _cry_ , but if it was easy to get out of this, he wouldn’t need those words at all. He can smile, and he can mean it when his most beloveds surround him so sweetly. Insecurity, however, has dug it’s claws in deep and he cannot, he finds, pilot.

  There’s a simulation they attempt, on a down day a few days on from an attack, that goes wrong in every way possible; it’s increasingly possible that he’ll trip across the rabbit hole and jar Iron Heart enough that repairs are needed. It’s gone beyond that point when their electricity is violently disrupted; he comes to his senses with the sight of Riko standing before him, her small hands placed on his cheeks and a piloting suit on her petite frame as Hyuuga detangles himself from the equipment to run a hand down his back. That he can’t feel it is irrelevant; his face crumples too quickly to pass away as nothing while they’re still connected to each other, meaning Kiyoshi can’t escape the wave of concern as it hits him, a brick to the face moment, as they stand, breathing evening out. After a moment, once he deems Teppei ready enough, Hyuuga reaches over to brush back Riko’s bangs out of her face, give her a silent nod and hand her a helmet.

“You’re the one who never understood, Teppei.” She murmurs, flexing her fingers against the metal of his visor, her own shut down upon her face as she turns to take her space beside him, to his left – where Hyuuga has always stood, but today Hyuuga is behind him and murmuring a thousand things control is attempting to not hear as the Jaeger is booted up once more around them. He swears he can see the faint glimmer of Riko’s smile behind the visor but oh. Oh, he wasn’t expecting this, the overwhelming feel of her, warm and satisfied around him even as he wonders how she could convey something so beautiful, how her memories install something akin to content within him for the first time in a long time, how Hyuuga’s hands are stretched between them both, holding them both like that little extra conductor they sorely needed. Teppei closes his eyes, and embraces it; he can see Kagetora waving as he climbs into the Proud Father Jaeger – nicknamed such because he wouldn’t accept any other name when his daughter’s future was at stake – he watches the holograph displays as Proud Papa submerges itself in the ocean, he watches as vitals drop to nothing and he watches himself clutching to her, he feels Hyuuga pacing the floor and cursing as he smashes anything in arm’s reach against the wall and scream in the angriest whisper Kiyoshi has ever heard – yes, apparently it is possible – that they were both going to lose him if they didn’t do something and the tears they had shed for him and oh. He understands, the Jaeger thrumming to life beneath their feet as robotic limbs move in unison to rest upon each other and Hyuuga – fuck, Hyuuga should never have to wear that expression again, he should never have to _think_ about half the shit Kiyoshi has put them both through as of late. They disengage with ease, as though they’ve been partners for years – and, really, they have been – Riko raising her visor with a calm expression on her face. He’d never tell anyone, but he loves it when she’s right – it doesn’t look like he’ll ever have to say it out loud anyway. 


End file.
